


to color in the darker side of all my brightest hopes

by outoftouch



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Crack, F/F, F/M, M/M, barbara is a filler character honestly, i say fuck a lot, liam is literally a fucking lumberjack, niall and zayn just kiss a lot there isnt really ziall, nick is a predatory grad student, who models in his spare time, zayn is an art major/islamic theory minor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-18 23:39:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7335670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outoftouch/pseuds/outoftouch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s in the midst of an internal soliloquy as he enters the classroom and stops dead in his tracks. In the middle of the room, painfully naked, is the most beautiful man Zayn has ever seen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. art class, hot boys, and miscommunication

**Author's Note:**

> this is self indulgent like everything else i write. bear with me here. (title from paint you wings by all time low)
> 
> also excuse my shitty attempt at british slang i'm painfully american

Zayn is 15 minutes late to his Advanced Oil Painting class when it happens. He’s in the midst of an internal soliloquy as he enters the classroom and stops dead in his tracks. In the middle of the room, painfully naked, is the most beautiful man Zayn has ever seen. Zayn drops his cup of coffee and everyone in the small class turns to look at him, including the yet unidentified man.

“I’ll just get some paper towel to wipe this up-” Zayn says while wildly gesticulating, and then runs far, far away from the classroom.

 

Later, when he’s sitting in a pub with Niall, Louis, and Louis’s boyfriend, who has yet to be identified, he moans into his eighth violently bright cocktail about how pretty the boy was.

“He was naked, Louis. And not even shy about the fact that he had his bollocks out in a room full of strangers. He looked like he could strangle me and I’m into it.” Zayn looks wistfully into the distance and Louis’s boyfriend looks a little terrified.

“Zayn. I understand your plight, as I too know what it is like to have marvelously naked men in front of me that I cannot touch, but tonight is about Harry,” Louis says, looking amused. His boyfriend, now that Zayn is looking at him, seems to be no older than 18, hair a wild mess of curls on his head, long gangly limbs, and jade green eyes spaced just far enough apart to give him the look of a happy frog. Zayn takes a liking to him instantly.

“Who the fuck is Harry?” Zayn asks, confused. Niall, who’s been uncharacteristically quiet for the whole ordeal, steals Zayn’s cocktail and cackles. Zayn frowns and flags down the bartender for another one.

“Harry is my boyfriend. A freshman. The reason we’re drinking when we all have lectures tomorrow. You’ve been petting him for 20 minutes.”

Zayn removes his free hand from the boy’s hair with wide eyes. “You mean Shirley Temple? His hair is quite pretty, Louis, where did you find him?” Harry lets out a booming laugh and Zayn claps with delight when he notices Harry has a dimple and proceeds to poke him in it.

“Oh my god,” Louis mumbles, and drops his head onto the table with a resounding clang. “Vvnephleemggdnghrr.”

“What was that, Louis?” Niall asks with an impish grin.

Louis slowly lifts his head from the table. “I said, when is Liam getting here?”

“Oh, you’ll see,” Niall says ominously, then gets up from the table with Zayn’s cocktail in hand and heads over to the deejay booth to start his shift. The Weeknd's smooth voice comes crooning over the speakers. Zayn could see Niall's bright blonde head peeking out from the booth, frantically waving at someone who was on their way to the booth that he, Louis, and Harry were sitting in. Zayn turned his head in just enough time to see the drastically gorgeous model from his Advanced Oil Painting class walking up to their booth, grinning at Louis like an old friend.

"Bloody shit wank buggering fuck cunt," Zayn mumbles, then snatches Louis's shot off the table, downing it with a wince.

At this point, Liam was telling Louis a story animatedly, miming, oh fuck, coffee spilling everywhere.

"The guy was the most perfect person I'd ever see, mate. Like, jawline and eyes and cheekbones, Louis. Looked like a model fresh off a shoot or summat," the man was saying. _About him!!!_ , Zayn realized. The lumberjack Greek god hybrid thought he, Zain Javaad Malik, looked like a model. Oh, how the tables had turned. Then, a Cheshire cat grin spreads over Louis's face, slow as molasses.

"Liam, did I introduce you to my mate, Zayn? We've been rooming together since freshman year."

A grin was on Liam's face as he looked around Harry, who seemed to be asleep, in an attempt to see Zayn, but the grin quickly faded into what looking like barely concealed terror.

"Zayn. Uh, I believe we've met. Or rather, I'm the weird naked guy from your painting class who waxes poetic about your face," Liam stated, in a self-deprecating manner.

"Well, if it makes you feel better, Liam, you have nothing to be ashamed of," Zayn intoned, casting a lingering look at the crotch of Liam's jeans.

Liam's face bloomed red, and Harry, who was most definitely not asleep, released a cackle that sprayed gin everywhere.

“Jesus fuck, Louis, is your boyfriend an old man? Who the fuck drinks gin when they have something to live for?” Niall grouched, appearing at the table again.

“I don’t have anything to live for,” Harry proclaimed dramatically, tossing his curls, and slamming his hands against the table. Zayn makes a mad grab for his ninth cocktail, which shook from Harry’s impact.

“You do if you want to get laid tonight,” Louis replied.

Liam, bless him, looks adorably confused by the situation. Zayn isn’t too far off from confused himself, though that might be due to the cocktails and the shot. And, Niall is giggling from under Zayn’s arm. When did he get there, Zayn doesn’t actually know, but he kisses Niall deeply to shut him up, and then turns back to Louis and Harry.

“If you guys fuck in the dorm while I’m sleeping off my hangover, I will not hesitate to set the bed on fire. With both of you in it.”

Harry laughs again, thankfully not giving everyone at the table a shower in gin again, and Zayn decides to call it a night.

“Make sure to drink plenty of water, okay Zayn? I hope you don’t have too much of a hangover tomorrow,” Liam says, giving Zayn a tight hug with those beautiful arms clutching Zayn to his chest and those delicious abs pressed up against his front. Zayn would pop a boner if he wouldn’t feel guilty afterwards about perving on an unsuspecting hot stranger.

Zayn simply smiles and steals a half-finished bottle of vodka from someone sitting at the bar. He then salutes Harry, who salutes back and somehow manages to fall out of the booth, gets a kiss on the nose from Niall, and gives Louis the middle finger.

He only jerks off twice to the memory of Liam’s arms around him.

 

It’s the afternoon after, when sitting in one of his Islamic Theory class does Zayn begin to realize that drinking so much on a school night wasn't one his brighter moments.His head throbbed and he couldn’t even translate a first grade level sentence, much less the Quran, with the way he was feeling. Going to class in the first place was a terrible, terrible idea, but Zayn was up to his neck in loans and he’d be damned if didn’t go to class.

His professor, a evil man who preyed on the failure of his students, sniffs out his hangover like a bloodhound, and asks Zayn some question that he doesn’t even recall hearing the beginning of.

“Your mother,” Zayn hisses in Arabic, without even thinking about it. The Arabic speakers in his class started laughing and the white kids look confused, as usual. His professor gives him a look cold enough to freeze hell over, and Zayn gulps.

“If whatever you were daydreaming about was so important, Mr. Malik, I suggest you leave and finish contemplating it elsewhere,” he hissed. 

Zayn winced, collected his things, and fled from a classroom for the second time in two days.

Unsurprisingly, he finds Liam sitting on a blanket in the quad with Niall, who is gesticulating and wearing nothing but a tank top and khaki shorts in the middle of fall. Zayn takes a deep breath and wonders if this is going to be his life now.

He catches Liam’s eye first, and motions for him to say silent. He sneaks up behind Niall and throws himself at the blonde, who goes crashing to ground, swearing the whole way.

“Motherfuck-, oi, Zayn!” Niall yells.

“Hello, love,” Zayn says, grinning. He crawls off Niall, who turns and gives him a kiss, and snatches his snapback off his head while distracted. Liam looks put out, but whether it's by the homoeroticism, the thievery, or the Irish, Zayn doesn’t know. He decides to ignore his better instincts telling him to shut the fuck up, and instead turns to Liam with a megawatt smile.

“Liam, innit? How was the bar after I left?” Zayn asks, batting his lashes. He is laying it on a bit too thick and ought to stop, but he could care less when Liam is gaping at him like he’s a Botticelli angel. Niall guwaffs from somewhere in the horribly under-watered grass.

“It erm, eh- it was fun! Proper fun, yeah! We did a bit of karaoke, actually. ‘m a big fan of Drake’s slower stuff. I did Shot For Me, actually, then Harry did Sex, y’know, by the 1975 and started to get naked so we had to leave. Actually, I think he and Louis had already started fucking by the time we got them in the cab,” Liam shares, face lighting up.

Before he’s even consciously aware he’s aware he’s doing it, Zayn invites Liam along for their Friday club night. “It’ll be fun,” Zayn says. “Niall’s bringing Barbara.” Niall’s entire face quickly resembles the sun at the mention of the name of the Victoria’s Secret Angel that no one is completely sure he’s dating.

“You can bring a girl too, if you’d like.” Zayn stumbles over his words, immediately regretting them, praying that either Liam or Niall will speak up or that the ground will swallow him whole. Reprieve comes instead in of 5’1 of dyed-pink hair and daisy accessories throwing itself at him in the form of Perrie Edwards. They’d dated when they first arrived at university before realizing that they were both gay, and had been the best of friends ever since.

“Zaynie, darling,” Perrie says in an over-accented voice, situating herself in his lap, “are we drinking ourselves into a stupor again tonight? Because I don’t quite fancy snogging you when I can’t remember it.” She winks at him and Liam turns an angry red.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, babe,” Zayn laughs. She beams, and goes running off in the opposite direction.

Liam is still red, and Niall is frowning at him. Zayn is utterly fucked.

 

Zayn is rummaging through the meager amount of clothing he owns and is realizing how utterly fucked he is.

“LEWIS,” he yells. Instead, he gets a naked Harry. “What the fuck.”

“I was doing moonrise yoga. It’s easier to be one with nature without man made fabrics blocking the connection,” Harry sighs dreamily. He reminds Zayn a bit of Luna Lovegood, if he’s honest with himself.

Harry gives his room, which is covered in discarded clothing, one glance and gives him a dimpled smile. Harry began shucking clothes aside until he came across a pair of impossibly tight ripped jeans and a leather jacket Zayn never wore. He then left and came back with a Matt Healy-esque shirt, and sent Zayn off to shower. “Let your hair air dry, it’ll do the curly undercut thing,” Harry says solemnly.

When he’s done, Zayn has to admit he looks rather smashing. Harry smudges eyeliner around his eyes, gives him a pair of ridiculous boots to wear, and deems him ready for his ‘date with Liam’.

“It’s not a date, Harry. We’re bar-hopping with approximately 30 other people.”

“It’s only gonna be us, Perrie and Leigh-Anne, and my grad school friend Nick,” Harry says, confused.

“Exactly,” Zayn says wisely.

It takes Zayn a good 20 minutes to realize that he had no problem with the kid being starkers and he’d only met him yesterday.

 

Zayn is only one shot into club night when he starts to miss the disaster that was the night he officially met Liam. Harry’s grad school friend, Nick, is a total shit who will not take his hands off of Zayn, and Liam looks like a sad puppy. Harry and Louis went straight to the dance floor as soon as they walked in, dragging Leigh and Barbara with them, and Niall and Perrie were enthusiastically doing body shots at the bar.

Nick’s hands continue to wander, except now he’s decided to strike up a conversation with Liam. Zayn is not drunk enough for this.

“So, Luke, was it?” Nick asks, grinning.

“It’s Liam.” Zayn takes another shot.

“Right, yeah, what’re you majoring in, kid?” Nick asks, uncaring. He’s nosing at Zayn’s neck now.

“I’m not a child either, Nicholas,” Liam says icily. Zayn grabs the entire bottle of tequila, necking it like it’s water now.

“All you undergrads are kids to me, I’m 26 for fuck’s sake!”

“Then why the hell are you hanging out with a group of ‘kids’, so to speak, and why the hell are you feeling up on one?” Liam growls, menacing.

“Oh fuck,” Zayn mumbled.

“What was that, babe?” Nick said, kissing down Zayn’s neck. Liam stood up, and Zayn made a split second decision that he’d later realize was Liam’s breaking point.

“Oh look, there’s Niall!” He yelped, launching himself at Niall and capturing his lips in a filthy kiss. Niall responds enthusiastically, wrapping his hands around Zayn’s waist and pulling him onto his lap. Zayn kisses Niall until he’s out of breath, and Niall pulls off, giggling into Zayn’s neck.

Nick is pouting now. “You know, you could’ve just said you have a boyfriend.”

Zayn gives him a look of disbelief, and suddenly Perrie is throwing herself at him.

“Zayner!” she yells, directly into his ears. “Let’s do body shots, I haven’t licked anything off your naked body in a whole month!” She sways dangerously, and then rights herself by grabbing Zayn’s ass. Nick coughs something that sounds a lot like ‘slut’.

Liam is even more red now, Niall and Barbara have disappeared into the bathrooms, and Leigh-Anne is dragging Perrie away from her quest for body shots.

“Yeah, _Zayners_ ,” Liam mocks, “don’t you have a boyfriend?”

‘What boyfriend,’ Zayn mouths at the ceiling, which has no answer for him.

Liam gives him a look and scoffs. “I don’t know what your deal is, but the way you’re playing Niall and Perrie is sick. Niall brought a literal model just to make you jealous and Perrie is drinking her sadness away! Just because you’re hot doesn't mean you get to treat people like shite, alright?”

“Niall is a red-blooded, heterosexual frat boy that is incredibly in love with Barbara fucking Palvin and Perrie is a bona fide lesbian whose girlfriend dragged her away not five minutes ago,” Zayn says, deadpan. “Wait, you think I’m hot?”


	2. a literal fucking ax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> liam is a lumberjack and zayn's brain is a mess because of it; the phrase "literal fucking ax" is used like 40 fucking times i can't stand myself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> zayn is honestly a reflection of myself and nothing like him in reality and i'm sorry for that but also not sorry bc it makes for great entertainment

Unluckily for Zayn, moments after Liam decided to drop that truth bomb on him, some asshole (read: someone completely fucking drunk) elbowed him straight in the stomach, causing the already-queasy Zayn to throw up all over Nick’s shoes. 

“What the fuck?!” Nick yelled, managing to catch the attention of every single one of the club patrons. Somewhere in the distance, Zayn could hear Louis cackling, as well as him snapping pictures of Nick’s reaction. 

“I’m so, so, so sorry,” Zayn apologized, suddenly feeling much more sober than before. “Wait, actually, no I’m not. You’re an asshole.” 

“You don’t mean that, you’re drunk,” Nick said incredulously. 

Maybe the gods had finally decided to answer Zayn’s prayers, because Liam finally stepped in. “I think Zayn needs to go home,” he said, laughter dancing in his eyes. 

“I think Zayn needs more shots,” Zayn piped up, reaching for the shot glass lying on the table. Liam had decided somehow, that dragging him away was the best option instead of trying to reason with him drunk. 

“Come pick him up in the morning,” Liam said to Louis as he passed him on their way out. Louis gave him an exaggerated wink with Harry clinging to his side, yelling something about ‘Matt Healy never failing him’. Liam gave him a quizzical look and continued to drag Zayn away, who was fast asleep. 

 

The morning after, Zayn woke up with a pounding headache, in nothing but his boxers and socks that smelled suspiciously like vomit. He was lying in a strange room with enough comic posters on the walls to rival his own and the sounds of a dog barking in the distance. After waiting a moment to see if his head would stop spinning, Zayn decided to venture out of the room to find a bathroom and wondering what circumstances led to him ending up in a stranger’s bed. In the midst of yet another internal soliloquy, Zayn left the bathroom and returned down the hallway to find the room he left, what does he see lying against the wall but a _literal fucking ax_. 

“What the fuck.” 

“What?” Zayn hears, and who else does he see but Liam wearing an unbuttoned flannel shirt, chest glistening and beat-up jeans lying low on his hips.

Distracted, Zayn’s eyes linger on Liam’s well-defined abs, completely forgetting about the _literal fucking ax_ that’s still there against the wall and totally not a figment of Zayn’s imagination. 

“What was that you said, Zayn?” Liam repeats. He’s panting and Zayn is a little in love. 

“Oh yeah,” he says, shaking his head. “Why the fuck is there a _literal fucking ax_ sitting in your home? Also, how did I get here and why am I almost naked?” 

And, to Zayn’s chagrin, Liam literally giggles.

Zayn is so, so fucked.


End file.
